The Chaos of Stars
Page 53
I laugh bitterly. “Gods. Just can’t help yourselves, can’t ever leave me alone. You set me up.” Then I remember what little I know about the Orion from Greek mythology.
He’s known as the Hunter.
My stomach drops and I stumble back, away from him. Every dream I’ve had screams through my head. What if the threat wasn’t in Egypt? What if it was always here? All this time he spent worming his way into my trust, all those times he tried to get me talking about my parents.
All these feelings I was ready to have for him.
No. I stand straight, my spine a steel rod. “I don’t care who you are or how long you’ve been alive or how immortal you think you are. I will kill you before I let you hurt my parents.”
His treacherously beautiful face is white with shock. “Please, let me explain, Isadora!”
“Don’t you dare use my name.”
“I’m not Orion! Not the original one, anyway!” He runs his hands through his hair, voice tight with desperation. “He’s long gone. My parents—they named me—my dad knew him and—look, I’m just like you! I’m seventeen! I’m not a god. My parents are.”
The impossibly beautiful woman who specializes in love. The man with the limp who works with metal. No wonder they felt familiar. It was because they reminded me of my own family. “Aphrodite and Hephaestus.”
“Yes! And I didn’t mean to lie to you. I’ve waited so long to finally meet you, and I didn’t know how to say it! How do you tell the girl very literally of your dreams that you’re the son of ancient Greek gods?”
“You knew what I was.”
He shrugs guiltily. “Not at first, but I figured it out. When you swore at me in Croatian.”
“How do I know? How do I know any of what you’re saying is the truth? Amun-Re, my mother was right. You really can’t trust the Greeks.” I back away from him, putting more space between us.
“Please, wait. Let me explain! I was looking for you. But not for whatever you think I was. I’ve . . . augh, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you. When we talked about dreams, I was serious. I’ve dreamt of you. Every night. For years. I always knew you were out there for me, and every night I’d see you, made of stone, the strongest and most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and I’d speak to you in poetry and breathe life into the stone until it warmed and colored and you were there, and—” He puts his hands over his face. “I’m screwing this all up. The day I saw you with your hair short, I realized who you were. That was the best day of my life because I’d finally found you. And now . . . This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I’d never hurt you. I love you.”
My stone heart crumbles, the dust filling my lungs, choking me and making it impossible to breathe. He’s lied to me this whole time, and now this? “You love me because of stupid dreams? You don’t even know me! I trusted you, Orion.” I spit his name like a curse, and it doesn’t taste like hope and potential on my tongue anymore. “I have no idea who or what you are. But I swear to you I meant what I said. If you or any one of your cheap imitation gods comes near my family, I will feed your heart to Ammit the Devourer myself.”
His eyes are a picture of anguish. I pull the stone pieces tighter around my heart. I will not break, not here, not now.
I turn and walk out of the room of my heritage, my past, and leave the boy I wanted to give my reborn future to standing there, alone. Fighting back tears, I run down the stairs, through the main entrance past a shocked Tyler, and out into the night. The park is empty save for the homeless who pepper the sidewalks, already asleep beneath tattered blankets.
I find the huge tree next to the stairs, and climb into the roots, wanting to sink into them. My heart is not stone. My heart is sand and Orion’s cruel tide has washed it away from me, scattered it, lost it.
Hands shaking, I pull out my phone. My mother needs to know about this. She needs to know there are other gods out there, and that they know about us. This must be it, it has to be it. The threat behind everything.
“There you are,” a knife-sharp, guttural voice says, and it’s only then that I finally place the salty, swollen dryness at the back of my throat that has plagued me.
It tastes like an embalmed body smells.
“Anubis,” I whisper, and look up to see his jackal eyes glowing in the dark. “What are you doing here?” I didn’t think anything else could shock me tonight, but the sharp canines Anubis flashes in a smile prove otherwise. “Did my mother send you?”
“Isis doesn’t know I’m here.”
“If she didn’t send you, why are you—”
“Soon enough.” He reaches down and takes my phone, crushing it between his powerful, paw-like hands. “Don’t want you calling Mummy and ruining the surprise. Now, I have been in this soulless country far too long, and tonight I’ll get what I came for. Hathor was wrong—your existence isn’t entirely pointless.”
He wraps his hand around my arm, pulling me up so hard I gasp in pain.
“Isadora?”
We both turn. Tyler’s on the bridge, leaning over and squinting down at us in the dark.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice tentative.
Anubis squeezes harder, whispering low in my ear. “Do you know what I did to that driver? I embalmed his organs while they were still inside him. If you value your friend’s life, tell her to leave.”
He’s known as the Hunter.
My stomach drops and I stumble back, away from him. Every dream I’ve had screams through my head. What if the threat wasn’t in Egypt? What if it was always here? All this time he spent worming his way into my trust, all those times he tried to get me talking about my parents.
All these feelings I was ready to have for him.
No. I stand straight, my spine a steel rod. “I don’t care who you are or how long you’ve been alive or how immortal you think you are. I will kill you before I let you hurt my parents.”
His treacherously beautiful face is white with shock. “Please, let me explain, Isadora!”
“Don’t you dare use my name.”
“I’m not Orion! Not the original one, anyway!” He runs his hands through his hair, voice tight with desperation. “He’s long gone. My parents—they named me—my dad knew him and—look, I’m just like you! I’m seventeen! I’m not a god. My parents are.”
The impossibly beautiful woman who specializes in love. The man with the limp who works with metal. No wonder they felt familiar. It was because they reminded me of my own family. “Aphrodite and Hephaestus.”
“Yes! And I didn’t mean to lie to you. I’ve waited so long to finally meet you, and I didn’t know how to say it! How do you tell the girl very literally of your dreams that you’re the son of ancient Greek gods?”
“You knew what I was.”
He shrugs guiltily. “Not at first, but I figured it out. When you swore at me in Croatian.”
“How do I know? How do I know any of what you’re saying is the truth? Amun-Re, my mother was right. You really can’t trust the Greeks.” I back away from him, putting more space between us.
“Please, wait. Let me explain! I was looking for you. But not for whatever you think I was. I’ve . . . augh, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you. When we talked about dreams, I was serious. I’ve dreamt of you. Every night. For years. I always knew you were out there for me, and every night I’d see you, made of stone, the strongest and most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and I’d speak to you in poetry and breathe life into the stone until it warmed and colored and you were there, and—” He puts his hands over his face. “I’m screwing this all up. The day I saw you with your hair short, I realized who you were. That was the best day of my life because I’d finally found you. And now . . . This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I’d never hurt you. I love you.”
My stone heart crumbles, the dust filling my lungs, choking me and making it impossible to breathe. He’s lied to me this whole time, and now this? “You love me because of stupid dreams? You don’t even know me! I trusted you, Orion.” I spit his name like a curse, and it doesn’t taste like hope and potential on my tongue anymore. “I have no idea who or what you are. But I swear to you I meant what I said. If you or any one of your cheap imitation gods comes near my family, I will feed your heart to Ammit the Devourer myself.”
His eyes are a picture of anguish. I pull the stone pieces tighter around my heart. I will not break, not here, not now.
I turn and walk out of the room of my heritage, my past, and leave the boy I wanted to give my reborn future to standing there, alone. Fighting back tears, I run down the stairs, through the main entrance past a shocked Tyler, and out into the night. The park is empty save for the homeless who pepper the sidewalks, already asleep beneath tattered blankets.
I find the huge tree next to the stairs, and climb into the roots, wanting to sink into them. My heart is not stone. My heart is sand and Orion’s cruel tide has washed it away from me, scattered it, lost it.
Hands shaking, I pull out my phone. My mother needs to know about this. She needs to know there are other gods out there, and that they know about us. This must be it, it has to be it. The threat behind everything.
“There you are,” a knife-sharp, guttural voice says, and it’s only then that I finally place the salty, swollen dryness at the back of my throat that has plagued me.
It tastes like an embalmed body smells.
“Anubis,” I whisper, and look up to see his jackal eyes glowing in the dark. “What are you doing here?” I didn’t think anything else could shock me tonight, but the sharp canines Anubis flashes in a smile prove otherwise. “Did my mother send you?”
“Isis doesn’t know I’m here.”
“If she didn’t send you, why are you—”
“Soon enough.” He reaches down and takes my phone, crushing it between his powerful, paw-like hands. “Don’t want you calling Mummy and ruining the surprise. Now, I have been in this soulless country far too long, and tonight I’ll get what I came for. Hathor was wrong—your existence isn’t entirely pointless.”
He wraps his hand around my arm, pulling me up so hard I gasp in pain.
“Isadora?”
We both turn. Tyler’s on the bridge, leaning over and squinting down at us in the dark.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice tentative.
Anubis squeezes harder, whispering low in my ear. “Do you know what I did to that driver? I embalmed his organs while they were still inside him. If you value your friend’s life, tell her to leave.”
